Page:Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs (Volume Two).djvu/71

Rh to be seen in the entries in his diary in the days following the 14th of April:

“I can never repent it, though we hated to kill. Our country owed all our troubles to him, and God simply made me the instrument of his punishment.

“The country is not what it was. This forced union is not what I have loved. I have no desire to outlive my country. … After being hunted like a dog through swamps, woods, and last night being chased by gunboats till I was forced to return wet, cold, and starving with every man’s hand against me, I am here in despair. And why? For doing what Brutus was honored for—what made Tell a hero. And yet I for striking down a greater tyrant than they ever knew, am looked upon as a common cut-throat. My action was purer than either of theirs. One hoped to be great. The other had not only his country’s, but his own wrongs to avenge. I knew no private wrong. I struck for my country and that alone. A country that groaned beneath this tyranny, and prayed for this end, and yet now behold the cold hand they extend to me.

“God cannot pardon me if I have done wrong, yet I cannot see my wrong except in serving a degenerate people. The little, the very little I left behind to clear my name, the Government will not allow to be printed. So ends all. For my country I have given up all that makes life sweet and holy, brought misery upon my family, and am sure there is no pardon for me in the Heaven since man so condemns me.

“T do not repent the blow I struck. I may before my God but not to man. I think I have done well. Though I am abandoned with the curse of Cain upon me, when if the world knew my heart that one blow would have made me great, though I did desire no greatness.”

Finally, he writes: